If these properties of human language make it such a unique communication system, quite

different from the communication systems of other creatures, then it would seem extremely
unlikely that other creatures would be able to understand it. Some humans, however, do not
behave as if this is the case. There is, after all, a lot of spoken language directed by humans to
animals, apparently under the impression that the animal follows what is being said. Riders can
say Whoa to horses and they stop (or so it seems), we can say Heel to dogs and they will follow
at heel (well, sometimes), and a variety of circus animals go Up, Down and Roll over in response
to spoken commands. Should we treat these examples as evidence that non-humans can
understand human language? Probably not. The standard explanation is that the animal produces
a particular behavior in response to a particular sound-stimulus or noise, but does not actually
“understand” what the words in the noise mean. If it seems difficult to conceive of animals
understanding human language, then it appears to be even less likely that an animal would be
capable of producing human language. After all, we do not generally observe animals of one
species learning to produce the signals of another species. You could keep your horse in a field
of cows for Animals and human language 15 years, but it still won’t say moo. And, in some
homes, a new baby and a puppy may arrive at the same time. Baby and puppy grow up in the
same environment, hearing mostly the same things, but about two years later, the baby is making
lots of human speech sounds and the puppy is not. But perhaps a puppy is a poor example.
Wouldn’t it be better to work with a closer relative such as a chimpanzee.

Chimpanzees and language

The idea of raising a chimp and a child together may seem like a nightmare, but this is basically
what was done in an early attempt to teach a chimpanzee to use human language. In the 1930s,
two scientists (Luella and Winthrop Kellogg) reported on their experience of raising an infant
chimpanzee together with their baby son. The chimpanzee, called Gua, was reported to be able to
understand about a hundred words, but did not “say” any of them. In the 1940s, a chimpanzee
named Viki was reared by another scientist couple (Catherine and Keith Hayes) in their own
home, exactly as if she was a human child. These foster parents spent five years attempting to get
Viki to “say” English words by trying to shape her mouth as she produced sounds. Viki
eventually managed to produce some words, rather poorly articulated versions of mama, papa
and cup. In retrospect, this was a remarkable achievement since it has become clear that non-
human primates do not actually have a physically structured vocal tract which is suitable for
articulating the sounds used in speech. Apes and gorillas can, like chimpanzees, communicate
with a wide range of vocal calls, but they just can’t make human speech sounds.
Washoe

Recognizing that a chimpanzee was a poor candidate for spoken language learning, another
scientist couple (Beatrix and Allen Gardner) set out to teach a female chimpanzee called Washoe
to use a version of American Sign Language. As described later in Chapter 15, this sign language
has all the essential properties of human language and is learned by many congenitally deaf
children as their natural first language. From the beginning, the Gardners and their research
assistants raised Washoe like a human child in a comfortable domestic environment. Sign
language was always used when Washoe was around and she was encouraged to use signs, even
her own incomplete “baby-versions” of the signs used by adults. In a period of three and a half
years, Washoe came to use signs for more than a hundred words, ranging from airplane, baby
and banana through to window, woman and you. Even more impressive was Washoe’s ability to
take these forms and combine them to produce 16 The Study of Language “sentences” of the
type gimme tickle, more fruit and open food drink (to get someone to open the refrigerator).
Some of the forms appear to have been inventions by Washoe, as in her novel sign for bib and in
the combination water bird (referring to a swan), which would seem to indicate that her
communication system had the potential for productivity. Washoe also demonstrated
understanding of a much larger number of signs than she produced and was capable of holding
rudimentary conversations, mainly in the form of question–answer sequences. A similar ability
with sign language was reported by Francine Patterson working with a gorilla named Koko not
long after.

Sara and Lana

At the same time as Washoe was learning sign language, another chimpanzee was being taught
(by Ann and David Premack) to use a set of plastic shapes for the purpose of communicating
with humans. These plastic shapes represented “words” that could be arranged in sequence to
build “sentences” (Sarah preferred a vertical order). The basic approach was quite different
from that of the Gardners. Sarah was systematically trained to associate these shapes with
objects or actions. She remained an animal in a cage, being trained with food rewards to
manipulate a set of symbols. Once she had learned to use a large number of these plastic shapes,
Sarah was capable of getting an apple by selecting the correct plastic shape (a blue triangle)
from a large array. Notice that this symbol is arbitrary since it would be hard to argue for any
natural connection between an apple and a blue plastic triangle. Sarah was also capable of
producing MARY GIVE CHOCOLATE SARAH Figure 2.2 Animals and human language 17
“sentences” such as Mary give chocolate Sarah and had the impressive capacity to understand
complex structures such as If Sarah put red on green, Mary give Sarah chocolate. Sarah got the
chocolate. A similar training technique with another artificial language was used (by Duane
Rumbaugh) to train a chimpanzee called Lana. The language she learned was called Yerkish and
consisted of a set of symbols on a large keyboard linked to a computer. When Lana wanted some
water, she had to press four symbols, in the correct sequence, to produce the message please
machine give water.

Controversy

The controversy On the basis of his work with another chimpanzee called Nim, the psychologist
Herbert Terrace argued that chimpanzees simply produce signs in response to the demands of
people and tend to repeat signs those people use, yet they are treated (by naive researchers) as if
they are taking part in a “conversation.” As in many critical studies of animal learning, the
chimpanzees’ behavior is viewed as a type of conditioned response to cues provided (often
unwittingly) by human trainers. Herbert’s conclusion was that chimpanzees are clever creatures
who learn to produce a certain type of behavior (signing or symbol selection) in order to get
rewards and are essentially performing sophisticated “tricks.” In response, the Gardners argued
that they were not animal trainers, nor were they inculcating and then eliciting conditioned
responses from Washoe. In complex Figure 2.3 18 The Study of Language experiments,
designed to eliminate any possible provision of cues by humans, they showed that in the absence
of any human, Washoe could produce correct signs to identify objects in pictures. They also
emphasize a major difference between the experiences of Washoe and Nim. While Nim was kept
in a windowless cell as a research animal and had to deal with a lot of different research
assistants who were often not fluent in American Sign Language, Washoe lived in a domestic
environment with a lot of opportunity for imaginative play and interaction with fluent signers
who were also using sign language with each other. They also report that another group of
younger chimpanzees not only learned sign language, but also occasionally used signs with each
other and with Washoe, even when there were no humans present.

Important lessons have been learned from attempts to teach chimpanzees how to use forms of
language. We have answered some questions. Were Washoe and Kanzi capable of taking part in
interaction with humans by using a symbol system chosen by humans and not chimpanzees? The
answer is clearly “Yes.” Did Washoe and Kanzi go on to perform linguistically on a level
comparable to a human child about to begin pre-school? The answer is just as clearly “No.” In
arriving at these answers, we have also had to face the fact that, even with our list of key
properties, we still don’t seem to have a non-controversial definition of what counts as “using
language.” Animals and human language 19 One solution might be to stop thinking of language,
at least in the phrase “using language,” as a single thing that one can either have or not have.

We could then say that there are (at least) two ways of thinking about what “using language”
means. In a very broad sense, language does serve as a type of communication system that can be
observed in a variety of different situations. In one situation, we look at the behavior of a two-
year-old human child interacting with a caregiver as an example of “using language” in the broad
sense. In another situation, we observe very similar behavior from chimpanzees and bonobos
when they are interacting with humans they know. It has to be fair to say that, in both cases, we
observe the participants “using language.” However, there is a difference. Underlying the two-
year-old’s communicative activity is the capacity to develop a highly complex system of sounds
and structures, plus a set of computational procedures, that will allow the child to produce
extended discourse containing a potentially infinite number of novel utterances. No other
creature has been observed “using language” in this sense. It is in this more fundamental or
abstract sense that we say that language is uniquely human.